The Age of Sageism

Sure, I have war stories, epics of Homerian class. Hard-won, hard-fought – in the ugly business of business. They are now told only to those who would appreciate what valor, courage, tenacity, and often pure stupidity I summoned to plant a corporate identity on forbidden shores or snatch priceless make-goods from the claws of vicious double-tongued monsters of Media. Abide a logo fallen from a full page in the San Jose Mercury News? Never! A misquote by some hack at Reuters? I will banish thee forever from my Alerts! What? You can’t do better than the rate card? Ho ho! You’ll see my ad tucked into your enemy’s inside cover!

Today these and plenty more hoary jaw-droppers bulge from my closet at home as I tote my resumes about the globe, across new-fangled “social networks”, and into the offices of cherubic youths anointed with titles such as Chief Cerebral Wizard, Thunder Maker, and Master Knowledge Artist. Yeah, well show me a Master Knowledge Artist and I’ll show you a Master Bull**** Artist (you? .ed).

As silver-tongued as a Vice President of Verbal Identity might be, when faced with a chronicle of my gainful endeavors it would seem that I command no more colorful Verbal Identity in His Presence than “overqualified”. Thrust! That file-card diminutive from the Great Depression ready for its entrance! Bull**** not the “Overqualified” you sniveling stubble-faced gnome! By Thunder and Diminution! A roaring that might have been praise!

Parry!

“No I am not!”
“Well, what’s all this then?”
“What?”
“Your resume.”
“Oh, you know just some things.”
“No, I mean, with your experience you should be a CEO or something.”

Death’s cold kiss.

I’ve more or less stopped trying to figure out why knowing a bit more about a job is less attractive than knowing the job or probably the more attractive option, knowing very little about the job. I’ve tried to walk in with a sort of hey, I don’t know much about cloud computing [with 20 years of IBM under my belt I practically invented it, you dumb git) but I’m a fast learner approach, and I’m still “overqualified”. What the hell do you think I went to a prestigious institution of higher learning for? To be merely “qualified?”

I get the “CEO” thing all the time, but it takes somebody like me to know that a not insignificant portion of the CEO population out there can barely tie shoelaces. As a kid, I couldn’t care less about the tornadoes, cute dog, munchkins and green witches -- the part that I couldn’t wait to see is the creepy little man behind the curtain pulling levers, blowing smoke, booming his voice and scaring the ruby slippers off everyone. Now there was a real CEO. So I don’t know why the CEO's of Oz are so Olympian.

You’ll be delighted to know that no Thesaurus I’ve consulted has come up with anything resembling a synonym for “overqualified”. Hence I am free as a penny in a puddle to offer: “old”, “highly knowledgeable”, "smarter than I am", “sage-like but otherwise useless”.

Now, it’s possibly relevant that in fact I shaved off my white-ish beard to tackle today’s job market. Prior to my defoliation I was known around the block as “God”, as in "Hey God! Wazzup?". Denuded now thanks to the fellows at Gillette, I’ve been reduced from God to “CEO” and still can’t get a bloody job for having demoted myself in the tonsorial department.

Hey listen, come to think of it, no one wants God in the workforce anyway.

He’s a bleedin’ old self righteous know-it-all who claims he has intimate knowledge of cloud computing.